Storms and Convective discussion - June 2023

[Row w]

Main of it has gone to the south of us looking at the lightning maps although I don't complain I've been spoiled for storms the past few days.

[ChezWeather]

7 minutes ago, cheese said:

Wasn’t that the case yesterday and the day before though? The cooler east coast seems to prevent thunderstorm development to the east of here. 

Yep, even further west today though, the area around Oxford looked nailed on for severe stuff this morning 

[TwisterGirl81]

Just now, Row w said:

Main of it has gone to the south of us looking at the lightning maps although I don't complain I've been spoiled for storms the past few days.

So jealous, think I’d settle for some rain down here, it’s like a dust bowl, cracked soil, golden grass (not my lawn )

[Eagle Eye]

21 hours ago, Eagle Eye said:

Alright well I don't necessarily agree with Jay's map, I think he mightve overdone the high maybe but I gave him the freedom to do the map all by himself today. Here's my discussion;

Convective Outlook  

Monday 08:00 - Tuesday 04:00

Significant bouyancy and CAPE should provide another day of strong thunderstorms. 2000 J/KG of CAPE with surface lift fairly strong should mean that breaks in cloud will allow for surface heating to be strong enough to break capping eventually.

However, saturation looks to be fairly strong weakening lightning potential and providing a layer of cloud somewhere. However, that layer should be broken through just not as strongly as elsewhere.

This is troubling the models at the moment and leading to lots of different solutions. Given the pure amount of CAPE, especially wih 150+ J/KG of 3CAPE. Therefore strong storms with frequent lightning and perhaps low-end severe hail (1 inch) is plausible somewhere, mostly likely within the moderate and high risks. Despite that saturation.

Moisture is high and with low LCL's, 30 to 40mm's of rainfall within an hour locally is possible in areas. Similar to the last few days. So a severe for surface flooding possible and a small chance of low-end severe hail.

Entrainment CAPE being low due to forcing and/or tall LCL's and short EL's is unlikely. Having taken a look at a sounding on the AROME in a fairly good area to get a general idea, 827(I'm assuming metres) LCL's and 12km EL's and possibly locally taller,is a good sign for a lot of CAPE to be taken up.

Forcing is strong enough for clusters or possible an MCS again so despite weak shearing, storms should remain fairly long-lived. If shearing were higher, I suspect we would've upgraded to a high risk further south and west as well even with the cloud cover issue but being fairly weak it means that air parcels have to remain in an open sector for convection for fairly long and also be very quick at connecting to be anything more than a pulse storm.

So given that, I suspect that a lot of cumulus congestus will go up early afternoon but keep recycling the convection centre hitting the cap and cloud until one of the convection centres bursts through it. Then we'll get a proper storm to form and then more and more keep forming as they all burst through the capping and possible cloud then we'll likely get a stronger build up of bouyancy and more vigorous convection than modelled as we've seen on Saturday and Sunday. That should happen widespread especially across the moderate and high risk areas.   London might be a bit too south to see the strongest storms and only seeing weaker ones if at all but there has been a slight southerly and easterly trend on most models recently. This cap breaking likely means that initiation won't be aroun 1-2pm like normal but more 3-4PM but quickly upscaling into clusters.

In these clusters or possible MCS's, some models are showing 80+ km/h wind gusts localised so some low-end severe wind gusts are plausible but still unlikely and in very localised spots.

Generally 1 inch hail and flash flooding is what's given the severe risks. This is a very similar day to Saturday and Sunday but a slight shift of area.

In areas of Scotland, especially the south and the northeast, some fairly strong storms are also possible away from the main area further south so there's an increase in risk there.

Similarly there's an increased risk in parts of Ireland and northern Ireland. So a slight risk has been added there and linked up with the Scottish risk.

I'd say me and Jay did well again today but could've put the high in most of our moderate area and it would've made sense. Another Ireland risk that didn't materialise but Scotland has done rather well quite sneakily.

[Row w]

1 minute ago, TwisterGirl81 said:

So jealous, think I’d settle for some rain down here, it’s like a dust bowl, cracked soil, golden grass (not my lawn )

I know, I feel sorry for anybody who's missed out, not just the storms but anybody desperate for rain and the forecast for the next week looks dry and not a drop around 

[Cheshire Freeze]

Just now, Eagle Eye said:

I'd say me and Jay did well again today but could've put the high in most of our moderate area and it would've made sense. Another Ireland risk that didn't materialise but Scotland has done rather well quite sneakily.

Wow that is a wide area of strikes.

We had an absolute belter here today. Continuous thunder, torrential monsoon like rain, large hail earlier on. Roads submerged.

Great day of weather!

[cumbrian ice]

Getting to drought conditions in Cumbria. The river derwent has almost stopped running in borrowdale for the 3rd year in a row! All the storms are clipping the west coast and to the south, Barrow area. We had about 5 minutes of rain in Cockermouth. Unbelievably no meaningful rain for weeks here.

[RobR]

Incredible cells today, driving from Macclesfield to Nantwich right in line with the storm. Trees down, power outages at lights, flash flooding, gunshot thunder and large hail pelting the window.

[Sparkiee storm]

Completely missed out on storms and even rain today somehow, but not all bad as i saw distant activity and flashes from a storm that skimmed to the southwest and then another that rapidly developed over or near Wolverhampton that then merged with the first, im surprised we haven't had a drop of rain though from all the activity just a light shower this afternoon. 

[TwisterGirl81]

6 minutes ago, Row w said:

I know, I feel sorry for anybody who's missed out, not just the storms but anybody desperate for rain and the forecast for the next week looks dry and not a drop around 

Loving the dry sunny weather but it’s just I’d rather rain in the form of torrential thunderstorms rather then a front coming through and changing the weather to a more negative one….I’ve checked the weather for next week and it does look like rain is coming, hopefully a thunderstorm or 2 

[LIGHTNING ACTION]

Just warm days here, I could see a faint anvil from one of those storm earlier, nothing much, peaceful here! Hopefully will get something soon

[Rich_T]

Distant rumbles and thats where it stayed, the radar looked promising, but as it approached it seemed to start splitting, one lobe of heavy rain ( and presumably thunder/lightning) went to the north, and one to the south.

 It looked like there would be some heavy rain on the radar - but that was somewhat underwhelming - nothing but a few heavy splodges.

 Going to pop out now to water the garden

[TallPaul]

39 minutes ago, Dangerous55019 said:

The sky over towards my east/north east has just gone very dark… Distant rumbles of thunder, and now the rain has started!

My fourth storm in three days?!

My fourth storm in three days?!

You lucky sod!!

[pad199207]

Hasn’t a prayer crossing the Irish Sea 

[SarahWxm]

Thunder and lightning like crackers here now and torrential rain. A lot of elevated stuff but just had a massive CG that lit up and shook the whole front room lol

[Foxgloves]

The radar seemed to put a nice cell right over us.  Lots of nice rumbles thunder, a few good flashes, a dribbleof rain.  Mainly it just made us reminisce about Wisconsin thunderstorms and now I'm a little homesick and my garden still needs watering

[It's a Philcast]

We thought Bromsgrove was in the firing line as Redditch had lightning everywhere.....and then it fizzled out. Ah well, at least I copped it in Alcester yesterday

[Summer8906]

Only just checked the forum and amazed to hear all this thundery activity. Here the sun's out again and it's distinctly fresher than the last couple of days.

Nothing here, and not even any sign of anything really, though I did notice a veil of Cs to the northeast around 1730-1800. I assumed this might be just some generic Cs cloud, perhaps associated with a weak front, but it appears it was related to this system.

Might pop out soon to see if I can see any Cbs to the NW.

Presumably these storms are on a trough separating the humid air of the weekend from drier and cooler air moving in from the E?

Only real hint of thundery activity here this weekend was yesterday afternoon which was cloudy to dull and intensely close and humid. Thought I heard distant thunder to the SE from the New Forest around 1600 or so, and a light shower passed through soon after that.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Summer8906

[weatherobsuk]

I gave it a try at Blithfield Reservoir in East Staffordshire but the view was limited and the only feasible place to see anything was across the Reservoir Road that cuts through it, second thoughts and made it up to Wotton Hills past the JCB Factory and got some fantastic sights looking out across the Midlands all the way to Church Stretton. The storms seemed lively enough but typically they ran out of energy just as they got to my location, can't complain though as i've seen some nice thunderclouds and distant lightning strikes today.

Pics to come for later as it's now tea time and catching up on all of today's events.

[glightning]

9 minutes ago, pad199207 said:

Hasn’t a prayer crossing the Irish Sea 

I feel you! These large storms over England are having the worst effect over here. They are throwing a ton of cloudy muck up into the upper atmosphere and the decaying anvils then track overnight to Ireland because of the SE to NW flow and spoil our chances of sun, heat, or storms the next day  It absolutely sucks.

The sooner this current pattern breaks, the better. The air needs to dry up over England so that we don't have to put up with the mid and high level cloud the anvils produce. Prefer a straight southerly so that northern Great Britain gets the cloud shield

[Azazel]

Has tomorrows ‘risk’ for the south disappeared?

I probably already know the answer to that.

[Weather-history]

Magnificent, a tremendous thunderstorm. One of the best I can recall for years. Continuous thunder, CG lightning.

 

The development of it was something else and thankfully I placed one of my timelapse cameras in the right place

 

[davehsug]

Some flashes on this Blackpool Webcam, Frustratingly it pans around, but whem it's pointing south there's some good views.

Blackpool Live Cam

WWW.BLACKPOOLLIVECAM.CO.UK

 

[minus10]

7 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

Magnificent, a tremendous thunderstorm. One of the best I can recall for years. Continuous thunder, CG lightning.

 

The development of it was something else and thankfully I placed one of my timelapse cameras in the right place

 

Thats stunning and beautiful !!..showing perfectly the quick development of these intense storms...

[glightning]

9 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

Magnificent, a tremendous thunderstorm. One of the best I can recall for years. Continuous thunder, CG lightning.

 

The development of it was something else and thankfully I placed one of my timelapse cameras in the right place

 

Incredbile video! Sound is perfect for it too! Thanks for sharing!